STRATEGIC PLANNING
Foresight Workshop with international experts (7 July 2008)
Foresight
The Steering Committee of the Intersectoral Platform on Anticipation and Foresight decided to launch a collective thinking process on the role, contribution and the place of foresight in International Organisations, and to help in strengthening the capabilities and competences of the Secretariat in that regard. To this end, a workshop with international experts was held at Headquarters on 7 July 2008.
The debates highlighted the importance of, and the growing need for, a capacity for foresight analysis in intergovernmental organizations including UNESCO, governments and civil society institutions. The participants also stressed the profound changes that were affecting, in the current context, not only the relations between foresight and decision-making, but also the increasing diversification of types of foresight activity. In that respect, the participants made many practical suggestions and proposals in order to strengthen the foresight function within UNESCO and interlock foresight, strategic planning and sectoral policies.
PROGRAMME
Opening speech
- Koïchiro MATSUURA, Director-General of UNESCO
1st session: What Future Prospect for Anticipation and Foresight?
- Dennis MEADOWS, President of the Laboratory for Interactive Learning, co-author of the famous report to the Club, Limits to Growth
- Mohamed MANSOUR, Executive Director, Center for Future Studies (Egypt)
2nd session: From Knowledge to Anticipation, from anticipation to action
- Thierry GAUDIN: President of Prospective 2100 (an international association aimed at preparing global programmes for the twenty-first century), he directed the Centre de Prospective et d’Evaluation of the French Ministry for Research and Technology for ten years (1982-1992)
- Nadezhda GAPONENKO: Director of the Centre of Science Development Study of the Russian Academy of Sciences
3rd session: What scale is fit for thought, what scale is fit for action?
- Francisco José MOJICA: Director of the Centro de Pensamiento Estrategico y Prospectiva of the Universidad Externado de Colombia
- Colin BLACKMAN: Independent Consultant and Editor of Foresight
4th session: How do International Organisations successfully incorporate future thinking?
- Kimon VALASKAKIS: President of the New School of Athens/Global Governance Group
- Jérôme GLENN:Millennium Project Director
5th session: UNESCO and Foresight: What scenarios for the Future? How are Foresight activities, strategic planning and programme sector policies to be connected?
- Souleymane Bachir DIAGNE: Professor of Philosophy at Cheikh Anta Diop University (Dakar, Senegal) and Northwestern University (USA). Former special advisor to the Senegalese President for education and culture
- Jacques THEYS: Head of the Centre for Scientific Forecasting and Monitoring of the Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development (MEDAD)
SPEECHES